


Hard Choices

by Morgana



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-25
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:14:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgana/pseuds/Morgana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean gets pushed beyond his limits</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard Choices

_Be happy with what you've got_. Dean had heard those words more times than he could count, usually when he or Sam wanted something that Dad didn't think they should have. Or something he couldn't afford. And he'd done his best to take those words to heart. He'd tried to be content with what he had, to be happy that he had Dad and Sam and the car, but that was before Sam announced that he was leaving to go to college.  
  
Stanford. All the way across the country. Dean was proud of him for getting in, he really was, just like he was glad Dad thought he was old enough to go hunting on his own now, but that didn't mean it didn't still sting. Because in the end, when it had come down to it, Sam hadn't chosen him. He hadn't asked him to go with him, hadn't tried to bribe him with promises of apartments and garages - not that he'd have needed that much convincing, but still. A  _little_  effort would've been nice.  
  
Instead, Sam had packed his bag, gotten into a screaming fight with Dad, and gone slamming out of the house, their father's words still hanging in the air.  _If you walk out that door, don't even think of coming back!_  Before that night, Dean would've said that John Winchester would never dream of turning his sons away, not if they really needed him, but after it… after it, he'd started to wonder. What if whatever he needed disrupted a hunt? Would he still be there or would it have to wait until the hunt was over?  
  
Except that the hunt was never really over. That was what Sam always said, and Dean had to admit that he was right. There were always more things out there, more ghosts to lay to rest, more werewolves and night hags and harpies that needed to be put down, And that was okay, they'd learned to live with it, and in Dean's case, to enjoy it. He liked saving people, seeing the relief in their eyes, knowing he'd given them peace and a safer world to live in, and if it wasn't a burning obsession for him the way it was for Dad, it was still good. Better than a lot of set-ups, that was for sure.  
  
Besides, he'd had something that meant a hell of a lot more than hunting, and that was Sam.  
  
He'd thought his brother felt it, too. He'd thought he wasn't alone in making Sammy the center of his world, but now he knew the truth. He wasn't the center of Sam's world, hadn't been for a long time, if he'd ever been at all. It was jarring, to think one thing and then have the truth slam into you, and Dean had been hit upside the heart with a massive 2x4. That it had been wielded by the one person he loved and trusted more than any other was just insult on top of the mortal injury.  
  
He spent a very long year and a half reeling from the shock of it, then missing his brother and the closeness he'd thought they had. It wasn't until after the second summer that Sam stayed at college instead of coming home, the second summer that he didn't bother to call and ask Dean to come spend the time with him (and he would've done that in a second, dropped everything to spend time with Sam again. Surely he had to know that), that the hurt started to be replaced with anger.  
  
It was a slow burn, creeping up on him until one night he got spectacularly drunk and dragged a long, lean boy back to the hotel with him. Just before they tumbled into bed, he pulled his necklace off and tossed it on the nightstand, then spent the next several hours lost in a sensual haze while he fucked the boy, whose name he never bothered to find out, into the mattress. And up against the shower tile. And through the floor. And up against the Impala after they went out for breakfast in the morning. He came back to the room, still more than a little drunk and reeking of sex, to find a voicemail on his phone.  
  
_Hey, Dean. I tried calling last night, but you must've been on a case, cause it kept going straight to voicemail. I hope everything's all right. Happy birthday, man. 25 - getting old, huh? Anyway, I know you're probably busy with stuff, but I was hoping maybe you could come visit later this year? I'm gonna be 21, you know, and you always said you had a duty to get me wasted for it. So... give me a call and let me know, okay? You can meet my friends and we'll all hit the bars, have a good time. I'll talk to you later._  
  
The phone hit the wall and shattered before he even realized he'd thrown it. Dean stared at the plastic shards, fury welling up inside him until he stomped down on one of them. What the fuck was Sammy playing at?!? He hardly called, only picked up his phone when Dean called him once every three or four times, and now he wanted to sound all kicked puppy just because he hadn't talked to Dean for his birthday, which Sam couldn't even be bothered to be around for! It was fucked up, royally fucked up. Sam hadn't chosen him. When it came down to it, Sam had chosen school and his precious normal life over Dean, just like Dad had chosen hunting and chasing the demon that had killed their mother over raising his sons.  
  
"Fuck you," he said aloud, glaring down at the remnants of his phone. "Fuck you both." It felt good to say it, even if they weren't there to hear it. But then, that was the problem, wasn't it?  _They weren't there_. The two people he loved most in the world, the people he would've walked through fire for if they'd asked him to, and they weren't there for his birthday. They'd missed it, but he was supposed to jump whenever Dad called about a hunt or Sam called to ask him to visit for  _his_ birthday? Well, fuck that.  
  
Dean knew it was selfish and small and greedy, but once, just once, he wanted to come first. He wanted to be the most important person in someone's life, the one they'd do anything for. He deserved it, didn't he? Lots of other people had that, someone that put them first, so why shouldn't he have it, too? Just because it wouldn't be the people he really wanted, he could live with that. He'd find someone else to put first, and they'd put him first, and Dad and Sam could just go fuck themselves, because he wouldn't be there for them to fuck over anymore.  
  
He kicked the plastic pieces of his phone and turned away, trudging into the bathroom to strip and shower. When he came out, he dressed and packed up everything but the broken phone and his necklace, which he stared at a long time before he decided to leave it laying on the nightstand. It obviously hadn't meant that much to Sam, just like he hadn't, so there was no reason to hang on to it. Besides, he had to go get a new phone - and a new phone number, so he might as well ditch that along with his old phone number. Grabbing his bag, he strode out to the car to get started on his new life, the one where he was going to put himself first.  
  
He managed to make it ten miles out of town before he turned around and went back for it. There was just something about not having that charm laying against his chest that left him feeling naked, and not in a good way. But Dean told himself that it didn't change anything, even as he looped the necklace over his head and carefully smoothed it back into place. He wasn't going out to Stanford for Sam's birthday, and he wasn't about to let his family keep treating him like second best. He was his own man now, and he wouldn't go running the second Sam or Dad whistled.  
  
And this time... this time he meant it.


End file.
